"To give light to those who sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace." - Luke 1:79

Purpose of developing the memorial
:
To wipe away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings
at home and around the world through the shared determination of
common humanity and embodiment of collective hopes of all who suffer
the effects of institutionalized abuse.

The International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Day Program
is a subsidiary of Internations’ Justice Federation’s
Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Programs. The memorial service
offers survivors of institutional abuse a time to remember the victims
whose lives have been claimed by institutional abuse, to unite all
survivor groups and individual survivors, families and friends of
victims and survivors, and to bring the issue to the international
forefront.

The International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Day Program
is committed to peaceful and non-violent change. With due consideration
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we the members herein
recognize that no individual human majority or minority can be expendable
in the cause of theory or policy.

The International Institutional Child
Abuse Memorial Day Program recognizes that many lives are still
being claimed by institutional abuse. Subsequently, many survivor
groups continue to surface. The Unknown Orphan Memorial Program,
working in conjunction with the International Institutional Child
Abuse Memorial, aspires to unite all groups, as well as the various
nations of peoples and cultures.

Institutional abuse is only now beginning to surface worldwide.
This abuse continues to wreak havoc among members of society’s
most vulnerable. Memories of traumatic experiences continue to haunt
many victims long after they have left the institutions. The effects
of abuse are strongly reflected in our corrective social programs
and crime rates. We lost in the past, and continue to lose many
of these victims to homelessness, poverty, violence, crime and suicide.
Today more than ever, criminal and civil claims of institutional
and systematic abuse are being launched in Canada and across the
world. The issue of institutional abuse is fast becoming an international
crisis. Therefore, Internations’ Justice Federation recognizes
that rectification of the current redress is urgent.

Internations’ Justice Federation further recognizes that
the dialogue of mediation between the relevant parties is failing.
Subsequently, Internations’ Justice Federation seeks further
to engage mediation in the debate of redress programs affecting
the various institutions, government, survivors, victims and the
community.

Throughout the debate of institutional child abuse is this question:
Do we as a society value children? If we as a society do value children,
what are we willing to do to endorse this value? The debate also
raises the question of how children, vulnerable groups and cultures
were valued in these institutions and society as a whole. The world
has known of child abuse for centuries. The hallmark definition
of abuse is not punishment; rather, it is the excess of punishment,
meaning where injury occurs. It is within this context that society
has known that it is wrong to injure another human being, as this
is detrimental to the well-being of fellow members of society, thus
creating discord in societal civil order.